How to grab the attention of your ideal guest in less than 10 seconds

When I decide to book a holiday, like most travellers I will spend a fair bit of time researching where I´d like to go and looking for a holiday that´s “just right”. During this research phase I am likely to spend several hours clicking in and out of different holiday property ads online, because in 85% of cases I probably wont look past the first thing I see on the page – if the property doesn’t grab my attention in the first 10 seconds then I will just move on to the next.

A quick look around the internet today reveals how important images are. Pinterest, the new social media network based on sharing images & video, has been the fastest site ever to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark. People who use Pinterest not only spend more time on the site than other social networks (with the exception of Facebook and Tumbler http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/pinterest-monthly-uniques/) but it has also been shown that Pinterest users are likely to spend more money online. This audience are devouring beautiful images and video, and are hungry for more!

Video is the latest thing in the world of holiday property marketing, and with good reason. Did you know that over 500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute?

Just like poor photos can put off potential guests, so too can poorly constructed video. Shaky images, cheesy background music or even sequences that go on for too long can all dissuade a potential guest from making an enquiry. So we encourage owners not to jump onto the video bandwagon for the sake of “keeping up with the Joneses” but consider it a proper and worthwhile investment in your business and go for quality.

Take a look at the video below to see the kind of production quality that is possible. We do have a little actress in this video who is quite enchanting (this villa is in the family friendly niche market), but the main point to note is that it was shot in High Definition using professonal equipment by our photographer in Andalucia.

Even though the video is only around 2 minutes long, this is the optimum you should be aiming for and is still enough to include some visual effects and tricks to give more interest for the viewers. Its a far cry from the average home video you see on the listing sites, and I wanted to leave you with this video to show how its possible to grab the attention of your ideal guest in just a few seconds…

[vimeo url=”http://vimeo.com/41802642″]